Democracy, human rights and women′s health (original) (raw)
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Mens Sana Monographs, 2009
New research on broader determinants of health has culminated into the new paradigm of social determinants of health. The fundamental view that underlies this new paradigm is that socioeconomic and political contexts in which people live have significant bearing upon their health and well-being. Unlike a wealth of research on socioeconomic determinants, few studies have focused on the role of political factors. Some of these studies examine the role of political determinants on health through their mediation with the labour environments and systems of welfare state. A few others study the relationship between polity regimes and population health more directly. However, none of them has a focus on women's health. This study explores the interactions, both direct and indirect, between democracy and women's health. In doing so, it identifies some of the main health vulnerabilities for women and explains, through a conceptual model, how democracy and respect for human rights int...
Correlation between human rights promotion and health protection: a cross country analysis
International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, 2019
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the correlation among health outcomes, and civil and political rights (CPR) and also economic, social and cultural rights. Design/methodology/approach The study uses cross-sectional data from 161 countries. The authors use health outcomes and human rights variables in the model. In order to combine dimensions of human rights, this paper uses factor analysis and obtains proxy variables that measure economic, social and cultural rights and CPR. The two proxy variables are used as independent variables to explain variations in health in a regression model. The paper then classifies countries by cluster analysis and explores the patterns of different components of human rights and health outcomes across country clusters. Findings The regression model demonstrates that the economic, social and cultural rights variables explain variations in all health outcomes. The relationship between CPR and health is weaker than that of the economic, soc...
Income inequality, democracy and health: A global portrait
2000
Throughout the world there exists a notable relationship between income inequality and health. Political factors and circumstances, which arguably affect the distribution of income, may also be related to population health. This paper explores the geographic dimensions of these relationships in an attempt to determine whether or not levels of democracy complement, influence or confound the association between income inequality
Health Expenditure, Democracy and Child Mortality in Developing Countries
2021
The main objective of this study is to assess the impact of health expenditure on child mortality in the developing countries with due consideration for democracy. To achieve this, we use the two-stage dynamic panel generalized method of moments. Our sample covers 126 countries over the period 1995-2017. Our main results show that subSaharan Africa is the only sub-region where health expenditure is negatively and significantly associated with child mortality. However, when we take into account the ranking of countries by income level, we find that health expenditure has a positive and significant effect on child mortality only in the least developed, low income, and lower-middle-income countries. On the other hand, it is in the countries of Eurasia, North Africa, and Latin America that a significant reduction in the child mortality rate takes place in the presence of democratic institutions; to this must be added the upper-middle-income countries. For example, respect for civil libe...
2020
The effects of democracy on living conditions among the poor are disputed. Previous studies have addressed this question by estimating the average effect of democracy on early-life mortality across all countries. We revisit this debate using a research design that distinguishes between the aggregated effects of democracy across all countries and their individual effects within countries. Using Interrupted Time Series methodology and estimating model parameters in a Bayesian framework, we find the average effect of democracy on early-life mortality to be close to zero, but with considerable variation at the country-level. Democratization was followed by fewer child deaths in 21 countries, an increase in deaths in eight, and no measurable changes in the remaining 32 cases. Transitions were usually beneficial in Europe, neutral or beneficial in Africa and Asia, and neutral or harmful in Latin America. The distribution of country-level effects is not consistent with common arguments abo...